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Monday, 17 June 2013

Of all the things my kids have done - learning to walk, talk, dress themselves, use an ipad! -nothing amazes me as much as watching my daughter learn to read.

This school year has been full of lots of worry, stress and patience. My daughter is far from being a stupid kid but she's a perfectionist who's scared of doing things wrong. So instead of launching herself into reading the way she did with speaking, she waited. And waited. And waited while her friends starting reading by themselves. (Ironically she was writing which seems to be a much harder skill!)
And I was starting to wonder (and worry).

And then in April, we saw the Matilda the Musical in London and she was inspired by the little girl who reads. She got home and tried to read. But then gave up.

Then one day about a 2 weeks ago, she came to me with a book in her hand and said she'd read 2 pages. Then last week, we went into her room to wake her up and her glasses were on, her light was on and she had a pile of books next to her. My little girl has turned into a book addict who wakes up in the middle of the night to read just one more page....she can't stay awake at school but she knows how to read!

From the bilingual side, it's amazing to see her transferring her decoding in French to her reading in English. I can hear her sounding the word out in French and then transforming it into English.

Amazing...simply amazing.

Some of her favorites : Princesse Academy (in French), La Famille Trop d'filles, Mademoiselle Zazie, any graphic novel she can get her hands on....

4 comments:

Great job, Suzanne! So many wonderful books await her. I'm really interested in how she's transferring her reading skills from French to English. My 3-yr-old twins can read pretty independently but only in English, which is all we speak/read/listen to at home, and they'll start French school in fall. Their French is still very limited and they certainly don't know French phonics... My daughter gets furious and frustrated if we try to sound something out in French with her. She says it's all wrong and tries to read the word with English sounds. Thanks for sharing! I always enjoy reading your blog.